Won NaNoWriMo Sunday November 16th
Validated win Thursday November 20th
Will update word count as continue with my Rebellion through November 30th
Just sayin’
Category: Crazy-Fun Files (Page 10 of 10)
Note: this entry was written last year, but never posted. I thought it appropriate to send it out On Day 12 during NaNoWriMo 2014. Heck, it was fun to write; so it should be fun to read. Enjoy! (ahem, notice my current word count in the sidebar!)
Day 12 (NaNoWriMo 2013)
Today as I took a short procrastination break after reaching a little over the halfway mark on my noveling, I opened an e-mail sent to me within a few minutes of my landmark word count victory. My middle child, Michelle, had inadvertently sent on an appropriate reward for having reached 25K. Sent as an encouragement and motivation in lieu of our normal lengthy conversations, her timing was impeccable.
Milestone indeed, but I’m not really one to bribe myself with rewards in order to reach personal or business goals. Continue reading
A ‘good morning’ surprise
Here’s what greeted hubby and I when we stepped out through the front door to go to work this morning.
Well actually, what first caught my eye was this potted mum placed strategically next to my planter of waning herbs.
Notice the concealed grocery bag filled with jugs of water? That’s the kind of day we had yesterday…
Let me explain.
Getting ready for company is fun for me. It’s part of my heritage. Not that I don’t get stressed, but I truly enjoy prepping for ‘parties.’ Yesterday morning began the final leg into that realm. Already having fielded a week of impromptu clearing out of the laundry closet space that we’d been using as extra storage in our little rental house in readiness for its intended use, I was ready to focus on the task at hand. That being: the routine of last minute fixes and major cooking for a greatly anticipated time of dining and gabbing with our guests for that evening.
Things went along like clockwork:
- Get dough ready for rising-check
- Wash salad greens and place in crisper-check
- Put leaf in table-check
- Tidy up living room and hide extra storage stuff from emptied laundry closet-check
- Take shower before lunch-check
- Start sauce to simmer-check
It wasn’t until close to the end of the prep that I noticed something strange. Continue reading
Contrary to popular belief, I am a snapdragon.
Let the Daisy Dance begin…
I never thought of myself in flower terms before, but even if I had, I’m not sure I would have associated a snapdragon with my personality before taking this little quiz. Interestingly, I took it 8 times in a row and came up as a snapdragon each time.
But hey, I love giant purple irises, deep red orange poppies, daisies and…
Milkweed
Fractal Milkweed & beetle
Milkweed is one of my favorite plants. Such beauty in several stages of its life cycle: The fragrance of emerging flowers is intoxicating, the flowers themselves a gorgeous purple, and the resultant seed pods other-worldly. My family knows that I want milkweed to be planted on my grave when the time comes. 🙂
These past few months I have been preparing blog entries for a serious series I hope to launch before the end of the year; perhaps even before the November craziness that is NaNoWriMo! Coming across this little flower quiz, I realized it could be used as a sort of relief for you (my readers) once I begin the process of posting those entries. As a point of reference and contact with the little flower quiz as a ‘respite’ (just a click away), a snapdragon badge will be displayed in the sidebar through out the duration of that series of posts.
I am still in a quandary as to what to name this forthcoming serious series. Until that gets figured out, I will wait on presenting it.
In the meantime, take the little quiz and declare your flower identity in the comments section of this post!
I am a snapdragon. How about you?
It’s been said that there are two types of people in this world: those that love cilantro and those that hate it. This division of stances on the merits of cilantro has in fact been debated for centuries. The 16th century herbalist John Gerard described it as a ‘very stinking herbe.’ While the Chinese continue to refer to it as the ‘fragrant plant.’
I think the title of this blog post shows which side of the debate I stand on…however I will concede that those who ‘hate’ cilantro might have a biological basis for disliking its taste. Continue reading
Enjoy a virtual treat and a colorful quote in celebration of my First Blogiversary!
“who knows if the moon’s a balloon, coming out of a keen city in the sky–filled with pretty people?” ee cummings
Barn buddies: Joanne & Skipper & Me
I figured you guys needed a horse photo fix, so here’s one of us taken the end of May just minutes before tacking up the horses for the 2nd Annual Bethlehem Therapeutic Riding Stables Horse Show. My, don’t we look fresh and perky? It’s a far cry from how we all look and feel now during the dog days of this endless South Carolina summer.
I love doing horse therapy. Today I spent another Southern morning amongst sweaty horses and humans. All of us out and about focused on the task at hand. Humans enabling horses to enable Wounded Warriors who in turn enable us all to thank God for this gift of life. Truly, it is a privilege to be part of such a place.
I came home after four and a half hours of such enabling, drenched. Soaked to the bone with non-secretive sweat patches emerging over 90% of my clothing. Not quite a wet T-shirt display, but daringly close to one! Continue reading
I love to cook and bake. Since I have featured my homemade sourdough breads in two previous articles (click on recipe name for article or here & here), I thought it appropriate to share my original recipes. Also included is a muffin/quick bread recipe that I adjusted to help use up excess starter. (Which is great with a cuppa joe!)
The following recipes assume one has sourdough starter on hand (Mother). If not, there are numerous ways of obtaining some, including starting one’s own via bread cookbook recipes. However, sourdough starter is kind-of the ‘zucchini’ of the baking world. When one begins baking with homemade starter, it usually overtakes the kitchen! Hence the infamous ‘Friendship’ breads make their rounds among neighbors periodically with an accompanying ziplock baggie containing 1 – 2 cups of starter.
Are you ready to have some fun? Continue reading
Note: tonight’s update has been great fun for me to research. While tracking down more songs with cowbell (added to the list below), I veered off into the realm of cowbell as an instrument. As an added twist I am including two short videos on various ways percussionists play the cowbell.
Here’s the IN PROGRESS list so far. I listen to each entry to verify cowbell sounds. Often other percussive elements are mistaken for cowbell to the untrained ear! Continue reading
“I got a fever, and the only prescription is: More Cowbell!”*
Driving around town the other day, I noticed a rare out-of-state car with an even rarer bumper sticker espousing something other than local church affiliations. Simply stated it said: MORE COWBELL.
For the uninitiated, that bumper sticker and the title of this post mean nothing more than the sum of its words. For the rest of us in-the-know, it is a clever twofold twist on the April 8, 2000 SNL skit: ‘More Cowbell’ with Will Ferrell, featuring the music of The Blue Oyster Cult.
Not to appear standoffish, it should be noted that my own status changed from uninitiated to one-in-the-know a mere three years ago, when my hubby found a video clip on-line and set it up for me to see on my mini-computer one evening after a particularly hard day working retail. Continue reading